


the ties that bind us

by CopperCaravan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aeral Lavellan, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Ensemble - Freeform, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 15:02:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7578685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots of Aeral Lavellan's life, both before the Inquisition and after he follows his sister to the Conclave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the ties that bind us

**Author's Note:**

> "Why does he talk like that??" Because he's a stuffy, overly-formal dude with no sense of how to do anything casually.

When he is born, his father marks his forehead with the ashes of his grandfather’s staff—a son of Clan Lavellan, a son of the line of Nylin, a mage child to continue the old blood.

His father doesn’t hope for these things, he knows them with the certainty that a son borne to him will be a mage child or will be no son of his at all—a harsh tie, but a necessary one, or so his father believes.

His mother cradles him, coos sweet things to her firstborn, sings him to sleep and gives him a name: Aeral.

When she kisses his forehead, the ashes come away with her lips. Her partner is a hard man, and a proud man, but like everyone else, he does what must be done for the people.

Their son will be the same, in that much at least.

-

He has four years to be a child, four years to hide from his duty under his mother’s skirts while she cleans the meat and the fish, and tans hides for their tents.

She has such strong hands; she has hands that do what work needs doing, that can kill wild dogs and make blankets of their fur. His mother is not a mage, but her parents were. She smoothes his hair away from his forehead that night and promises him that if he is not a mage, that will be alright.

He knows it is a lie—his father carries magic, and all the ancestors he can name. There are few of the blood in Clan Lavellan and two other mage children have already been named. His father will settle for no less than a Keeper and even so young, Aeral knows well his duty to the people. He will settle for no less either.

-

When his sister is born, his mother calls her Faen. A daughter of Clan Lavellan, a daughter of the line Nylin. Not a mage child, his father says, and he doesn’t smear her forehead with ashes from the pouch by the fire, but he doesn’t hold her either.

Aeral wonders how his father can know such a thing, but he hopes with all his might that it’s true. Another child of the clan has been called mage and Aeral still has not.

His father leaves the tent and his mother smiles and passes the bundle to him. “Your sister,” she says.

_My sister._

-

Aeral’s magic manifests suddenly. Frost follows his fingertips over tree trunks and rocks and grass.

His father wants fire, wants stone, wants blood if necessary. His father wants a strength that can stand up to the shemlen and their templars and their crushing hatred.

“He’s still so young,” his mother says, but his father will not accept excuses. Neither will he.

-

They come one day, the shemlen. Not in armour or as cavalry or with the wrath of their maker, but they do come. Farmers, tavern-keeps, guards. Just men. And they blame the elves—as they often do—for failing crops and missing goods and a travelling sickness. As his mother said, Aeral is still so young; frost and wisps and wooden sticks will not protect his people. He takes his sister and runs with the other children. He hides until the humans are all dead.

Most of the Clan lives—all but six. Two hunters. A child. The Halla Keeper. A weaver. His mother.

His mother had braided his hair that morning, after he’d failed to draw the sylvans from the earth.

“Smile, da’vhenan,” his mother had said. “Won’t you be happy for me?”

“I’ll try, Mama.”

The Keeper says he did the right thing, but even if his father would forgive, he will not forgive himself.

-

Even when his hands can freeze flowing rivers, when he can lead aravels safely over bridges of ice and call spirits to heal the ailing and shield the whole camp with the trees— _even then_ his father is not pleased.

His sister is growing so quickly and he knows he pushes her, but he only wants her safe. She climbs and hunts and sneaks out with the others.

_Fun,_ she says. _We’re only having fun._

Even before his magic, he cannot remember _fun._ He remembers sternness and training and scowling lips high above him, pushing him to do better, be better, be strong. _Make me proud! You are your father’s son! You carry the blood of the best of our people!_

He will not be a waste. He will not see another of his people fall to anything but age and the fruits of a good life. He will keep them.

“Stay to the paths,” he tells her. “Stay out of the farmlands.”

-

He is named First at Arlathvhen.

His father smiles, but the sight is nothing like he’d thought it would be. It is his sister’s grin that lightens his heart.

That night, while they drink and dance and sing and tell stories, his father makes a deal with another clan. Her name is Cassia and she comes from magic, though she has none of her own. She is lovely, he must admit, and she is kind. And she is to be his partner, traded to Clan Lavellan for the price of two of their hunters. Anything for another mage child, anything for the line of Nylin.

It’s the way of things and he doesn’t mourn, but he does drink.

Somewhere, across the camp, at a fire with her family for the last time, Cassia drinks too.

-

There is Blight in Ferelden.

He hears rumours of Wardens and traitors and darkspawn. Another Clan—Sabrae, of the South—settles near Sundermount.

They call her Fenera, a daughter of Mahariel, another line with the old blood. She was not a mage, they say. And she will never come home. The last of her name and she—and her blood—are lost to the people. Her clan grieves her absence, the death of her partner-to-be.

His father shakes his head— _what a terrible blow,_ he says, _what a waste._

-

Two years later, word reaches them all.

The last of Mahariel lives.

Her blood is still lost—so is she, some say; the cost of the Wardens is high—but she lives and the Dalish have been granted Fereldan land by their queen. Many of Sabrae pack their bags and begin the long journey “home.” Many of them hope she will be there.

Aeral hopes she will be there too; he hopes she is not lost to her people, whatever the price of the Wardens.

-

His father dies. A quick illness, one that magic could not hold at bay.

It is quiet, and peaceful: he goes while he sleeps.

The deal his father was making for Faen—a partner, for children, to preserve the old blood—is broken the day he passes. Faen never wanted it and Aeral can see the weight lift from her shoulders, even through her grief.

He is not sure he is grieving, but no weight rises from his shoulders.

When they bury him, burn his staff, Aeral gathers the ashes into the pouch that holds those of his grandfather’s staff—the ashes that were spread across his forehead, but not his sister’s, the ashes that his father would see spread across the foreheads of each of his grandchildren.

Aeral scatters them over the river.

-

His sister is their best scout. The Keeper trusts none more to find the way forward, to lead them through the heat and the maze of the Marches.

He worries: when she is not in his sight, anything can happen to her. They have lost people to the forests and the templars and the farmers, they’ve been lost to poison or to traps or to the predators that lurk the woods and the mountains.

He swore to lose no more and he has failed time and again, but his sister— _his sister._ He can’t.

-

Cassia keeps the Halla. It is not an easy job—she convenes with them, yes, and she cares for them, but she fends off wolves and bears and shems. She is kind, still, and she is lovely, still, and she is strong and brave and faithful.

He should be glad to know her, glad to know he will be hers. The clan finds the match suitable, and not only for the blood.

Cassia tells him he is handsome, that she counts herself lucky to know she will be his, but they both know it is surrender on her part just as much as it is on his.

He admires her, but he does not think he will ever love her.

He thinks of Mahariel often, of all that she gave for the people. He thinks of his father, and his mother, and his sister, and all he is more than willing to give for them.

-

When Kirkwall goes up, they know. They can see the beacon of light that was a Chantry rise into the sky even so far away as they are.

They know little of the shemlen mages, less of their Circle. But they rejoice when the news reaches them because their Chantry is nothing but a home for hatred. The rest of the story doesn’t matter.

Or so they think.

-

When the rebel mages and their jailors start seeking refuge and slaughter in their woods, the clan moves—farther from Kirkwall and Sundermount, closer to Wycome and what seems to be calm.

It is false, but they will not know that for a while yet.

The Divine—in all her uselessness—calls the shemlen to peace talks. Aeral thinks the entire affair is absurd, let these mages burn their prosecutors where they stand. So long as his people are safe from their fire, what does he care for their treaties?

But the Keeper says she will send scouts and his heart leaps into his throat the second his sister asks to go. The Keeper trusts none more, after all, so it is no wonder the request is granted. And he, despite the wishes of his clan or his Keeper or his sister, will go too.

-

He tells her it is foolish, that the Chantry and their templars can deal with it, that they cannot be seen bursting into the Divine’s chambers.

She doesn’t listen. She rarely does.

-

He wakes two days before she does. The Seeker questions him, threatens him, holds her blade to his throat.

His left arm—badly burned—is bandaged but bound at his side.

He will not speak until he sees Faen, until he sees his sister. And if she is dead, their maker have mercy.

-

She wakes, finally, but even after she closes the breach, she refuses to go back with him.

“The clan can protect you,” he promises, silently daring any of them to offer threats.

But her hand is shot through with magic he doesn’t know and she thinks _Solas_ can help, that this _Inquisition_ can help, that _she_ can help.

“I’m staying.”

“Then I am staying as well.”

-

He writes to the Keeper, and to Cassia.

He worries. He is here, shirking his duties to his people, fighting for a human Inquisition, namesake to yet more Chantry oppression.

But he does fight, at his sister’s side while she throws herself against horrors of all kinds. The fade has never looked like this to him; he has never seen so much confusion and destruction and rage. He wonders which version is true, but Solas says simply _they are all real._ It does not escape Aeral that _real_ is not always _true._

-

Leliana gives him a bird to shorten the wait between letters.

He writes to the Keeper, and to Cassia. He tells them how brave his sister is, how well she is adjusting. In truth he despises her easy banter with the templars and the Chantry mothers and the shop keeps. They do not deserve her.

He finds little company among the Inquisition’s pilgrims, less among its forces. Leliana and her scouts are quite tolerable, however.

_I knew the Warden Mahariel,_ she tells him, and he is shocked to hear such a thing. The Dalish have so long been without heroes and Mahariel still walks Thedas alive; to know she danced by campfires with this woman, learned to read and write the common tongue—something inside him pulls away from that and all that it implies. The Warden, the last of Mahariel who gave herself for the people, was a friend to a lay sister of the Chantry.

-

Cassia writes him a letter. Even still, she is kind, though she confesses relief at his absence.

He does not fault her for it; he feels the same.

-

Half of the Inquisition insists they should go to Orlais. The other half insists the conflict in the Hinterlands be dealt with once and for all. Aeral still hopes he can convince his sister to go home.

He loses on every count.

She goes to Orlais without him—and he worries, worries, _worries_ —and they send him with The Iron Bull and two of Leliana’s scouts to Redcliffe.

At the very least, the four of them are afforded enough privacy to laugh at Solas’ intolerable stuffiness.

-

He finds Scout Harding to be immeasurably capable. Her initiative is also to be admired.

She finds the enemy encampments within days, points out topographical advantages, calls into question The Bull’s strategy of _just go in and hit ‘em hard._ Better yet, she offers an alternative strategy that is actually sound.

These things he tells her; there are other things he doesn’t.

-

They spend _weeks_ in the Hinterlands. He writes to the Keeper, and to Cassia. He tells them all is well, progress is being made. He tells them he is unsure when they will be able to return.

His sister sends word from Orlais. _The templars are on a rampage,_ she says, and he wonders when they ever weren’t. _I’ve met the most glamorous woman,_ she says. _And the most peculiar flat-ear; I adore her._

He sends word back to her—of the Warden Blackwall and the Tevinter Mage and the Magisters in the castle.

They begin the long trek back to Haven and he occupies himself with Scout Harding’s conversation. The durgen’len are a curious people, he discovers. She seems to count herself less among them than among the people here, however. _Dwarven, yes,_ she says thoughtfully. _But I think mostly just a shepherd’s hand._

He cannot imagine being anything but Dalish, doesn’t wish to be.

-

The Warden Mahariel has come to Haven.

That is the rumour, at least. He has yet to find her and they will return to Redcliffe soon, to infiltrate the castle.

He writes to the Keeper, who answers him promptly that all is well and he needn’t worry. He does.

He writes to Cassia, who doesn’t answer, and he does not begrudge her for it.

-

Faen wishes to go to Redcliffe without him, but he won’t have it. She grunts and packs extra bowstrings and stomps away.

He seeks out Leliana and finds her eating with an elf.

She wears the vallaslin of Dirthamen and the weariness of a wanderer.

“Are you—you’re her.”

She looks at him long enough to make up her mind and Leliana grins.

“Hello, lethallin. Have a drink with us. I’ve missed being among our people.”

But she will not tell him where she has been instead.

-

Already Aeral can see that Faen is growing far too attached to the flat-ear. _Sera._  

It would not be a problem were Faen not so intent on prolonging their work here, were Sera not so opposed to their ways.

There is no one here for him to speak with. Instead he pushes it to the back of his mind and follows his sister into the Castle. There are, at the moment, more important matters. _But later..._

-

His sister seems almost wholly unaffected by what transpired in Redcliffe.

Blackwall and Sera have clearly been rattled, and Faen spends much of her time attempting to calm her new friend. His patience for the girl is wearing thin, however.

Even the Warden has retreated to Leliana’s quarters, refusing to speak to anyone for going on two days now.

He sculpts shards of ice with his magic, melts them over the campfire. It keeps his mind busy, free of other things, of that dark future and every failure of his that it held, every horror his people suffered in his absence.

“That’s very pretty,” Harding says.

“Oh, thank you.” But he stops immediately, despite her kindness. There are better places to put his attentions. “Would you care to join me?”

And she does.

-

When Haven falls, and his sister falls, he falls as well.

She pleads with him to _just go please_ and he thinks it is the most she has ever loved him, or the most that he has ever known it. But he would bring down all of Haven and every person in it if it would mean getting her out alive.

So he goes with her and fights with her and though Corypheus escapes, they live.

-

They trudge through the snow and she doesn’t argue when he throws his cloak over her.

_I am your brother,_ he thinks. _At least let me give you this._ He thinks it may be the last thing he ever gives her, hopes only that it is enough, and then he hears his name.

Cullen and Cassandra and Leliana, yes, running toward him and the woman who refuses to be their Herald but has proven their saviour nonetheless. And he is so grateful because surely now she will live, but it was _his_ name he heard and it was Lace Harding who called out to him and it is Lace Harding who props him up as he shuffles the last few paces through the snow.

-

When they finally reach Skyhold, Leliana’s bird finds him.

The Keeper writes— _we heard of the fall of Haven; tell us you and your sister live._

Cassia writes— _I am so sorry; I should have written. Tell me you are not dead. Tell me I haven’t betrayed a dead man._

-

The kitchen is oddly silent—all eyes on the Heroes of Thedas: The Warden, The Champion, The Inquisitor.

None of them seem to relish the attention. He would give his life for his sister, but he will not save her from acolytes. He wanted to leave months ago; she’s gotten herself into this and if she’s as bloody grown up as she says then she can eat her food without his help.

Instead he takes his breakfast with Harding, out on the lawn by the Tavern.

“I never thanked you,” she says. “For staying in Haven, for giving us time. You two—you could’ve died.”

He shakes his head. Faen couldn’t have died. Never while Aeral draws breath and certainly not at the hands of a man such as that.

“I should thank _you_ ,” he says. “I never thought to be dragged from the snow.” _And by a woman such as yourself no less._ But he doesn’t dare to say it.

-

When he realizes he must put in effort to dislike the Tevinter—Dorian—he simply stops trying.

It feels like a betrayal, to enjoy the company of someone who has risen so high on the bowed backs of his people. But he does, and he distracts himself from the guilt with conversation and books and trading techniques.

And when he learns how Dorian has cast himself out, _why_ , he feels his betrayal all over again for he’d give so much to do the same. Not quite anything, however.

Perhaps not even enough to matter in the end, which makes his selfishness even worse.

Dorian, at least, gained something worthwhile by losing and taking so much when he left.

-

When they find the Wardens in Crestwood, Mahariel is inconsolable. He never would have expected such a response, not for the sake of shemlen. But she laughs, yells at them, leaps into their arms, of all things.

He approaches her later, cautiously. “Lethallin,” he says, “I do not understand.”

“Dalish. Warden. I don’t get to be both.”

He is no Warden, no Inquisitor. He is, without any doubt, Dalish. Soon to be Keeper of his people.

He writes to the Keeper— _Not much longer, I should think._

He writes to Cassia— _You needn’t apologize to me, my friend. I fault you for nothing._

-

Faen loves Halamshiral. She allows Madame de Fer and the Lady Montilyet to drape her in silks and jewels and all manner of things. He finds the entire ritual absurd, but she looks thrilled, and beautiful, and he tells her so.

They kill the Empress. Faen would prefer to say they only allowed her death, but Aeral knows it is the same thing, and if she cannot be honest with herself, she doesn’t deserve the power she’s been given. Regardless, he watches her dance with Sera—if you can rightly call it a dance by any standard.

Josephine steers him toward the Dowager for a dance, a political chat shielded by dips and twirls and bows.

But he spies Lace Harding, standing guard by the door, and offers her his hand.

She blushes. “I’m not really dressed for it,” she says.

So he removes the sash so carefully placed around his shoulders and tosses it to the floor. What need does he have for such ridiculous trappings now?

“You are truly the finest here,” he swears. “And I would be honoured to have your company, my lady.”

He isn’t sure if she is his, isn’t sure if she ever could be, would even want to be, but for tonight, he will live as Mahariel does—wherever she is. He will take a moment to not be both.

-

When the Nightmare speaks to his sister, he defends her, forms a useless barrier around her, shields her as best he can, and sees that it can’t be enough.

But he realizes quickly that he needn’t try so hard. “I’m not afraid,” she says, and she truly, spectacularly, is not.

“You are a marvel,” he tells her. It is such a strange place, a strange time, to be proud.

When the Nightmare speaks to him, however, he is afraid and there is nowhere for him to hide from it.

“A traitor to your own,” the Nightmare says. “A disappointment from birth; how can you call yourself your father’s child? You’ve abandoned your people like a coward.”

He is at a loss; how can he defend himself from something like this? How can he call it a falsehood?

On his right, one of the shemlen Wardens takes Mahariel’s hand and she screams up toward the Black City. “At least I chose! At least I am what I am because I can be! What’re you? Just a voice in the blasted dark! Just—”

And while the other Warden calms her, Aeral realizes that the Nightmare’s words were for them both.

“Lethallin,” he says. “We submit to nothing, certainly not to _this._ ”

“Never,” she says.

_Never._

-

He writes to the Keeper— _I will be back soon; by year’s end, perhaps. Things are changing, Keeper. I am not sure—_ He doesn’t send it.

He writes to Cassia— _We have always deserved better than this. Do as you like, my friend._

-

All of Skyhold’s forces leave with them for the Arbor Wilds.

It makes for a crowded journey, and they’ve been on the road several days before he can steal her away.

“I _am_ Dalish,” he tells her.

Lace laughs. “Did you think I didn’t know?”

“Only that you couldn’t know all the complications that come with it. I wouldn’t wish to burden you—”

“Oh. I see.”

“—but I am afraid I must. I have... no answers for you, for what will happen when we are done here. But I offer my word, and my devotion. Those, at least, you needn’t ever question.”

“And everything else?”

He offers his hand and she takes it. “I suppose we shall see.”

-

Faen may not choose to be Dalish, after all. The Warden seems to be doing... well enough, for all that she confides in him sometimes. And if Faen wishes to find her happiness with the Inquisition, with Sera and her _Jennies_ , with the greater range of the world, then he will not halt her.

But it is good to know that she refuses to dismiss it all, even in the face of an army. A small comfort for his troubled heart.

They follow rule and ritual, as he has so carefully done his whole life.

And when they finally reach the well, he does what must be done. This—more than anything else in this blasted war—belongs to the Dalish and they will have it.

He isn’t sure why he asks for the Warden’s blessing, but he does, and she gives it, so he drinks.

-

The voices are overwhelming. He cannot find solace even in sleep—or perhaps especially in sleep. The quiet serves only to make them louder.

“Tell me what you need,” Mahariel says, when she finds him wandering the parapets late at night.

“Answers.”

She has very few, but she offers them all the same.

“What keeps _you_ up so late, Mahariel?”

“Memories. Voices in my blood,” she says. “Just like yours.”

“I think I have betrayed the people.” But he thinks that, even if he has, he cannot change now.

“Would you say the same of me?”

The Hero of Ferelden, the Warden, the Living Legend of the Dalish—and she wants his opinion. It’s absurd to think they’ve even found themselves here, on the walls of this fortress, so far from their people in more ways than one. And still so wholly devoted.

“No,” he says. “For whatever it is worth, I would say much different of you.”

“And I of you. For whatever it’s worth.”

It is worth a great deal.

-

Before they go to face Corypheus, Aeral asks Lace for nothing. It would be wrong, he reasons, to plead her hand with death looming over him.

But she seeks him out, bow in hand, and as he follows his sister to whatever fate awaits, Lace Harding walks beside.

And they win.

Faen seems surprised when she turns to find Solas gone, but Aeral truly doesn’t care.

They are alive—all this and his sister is alive. She is in love with a troublesome flat-ear with a terrible sense of humour and now there is an entire life spread out before them.

There is more ahead, he knows that much at least. But right now all that is before him is a victory—more than one—and a decision already made, a tie already binding.

Lace is alive—bruised and bloody and victorious—and so is he.

“I am afraid you’re going to have to try very hard to be rid of me now,” he says.


End file.
